


they're playing our song

by sayonide



Series: 3 rounds and a sound [1]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Gen, Implied Murder, Implied/Referenced Abuse, White Fang, blood mention, i don't know what style this is but it worked out alright, it's adam what do you expect, sorry bout not tagging that the first time around
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:08:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27364039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sayonide/pseuds/sayonide
Summary: We're going to change the world, they say, year after year. We're going to change the world.
Series: 3 rounds and a sound [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2002933
Kudos: 21





	they're playing our song

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know what this is either but i enjoyed writing it so here u go

We'll change the world, he laughed, motioning to the crowd of faunus behind him. No one would dare attack a group this big. Every bit of spoken doubt was shut down with a laugh and reassurance that it had to work. After all, the humans had to listen eventually, right? Not all of them were assholes. 

We're changing the world, he whispers, eyes still bright and hopeful, leading a crowd of faunus down the road. Peaceful protests, he'd claimed, would be how they got through to the humans. Alone, they were pushed off as animals, but if they just grouped together to show their numbers, they couldn't be ignored anymore. He repeats it, over and over and over, at the head of the crowd and in the faces of the humans, only silenced as they push past him, shouting commands into their radios and shooting into the crowd. They're rubber bullets, but it still brings the crowd to their knees, crying out in pain as solid chunks of rubber hits their arms, bodies, faces. 

Afterwards, Ghira takes a moment to look over everyone who's down on the ground, a layer of bodies littering the street, with bruises all around and bloodied noses staining the dark concrete. Faunus bodies knocked unconscious, broken fingers and cracked bones, with no punishments for the humans who'd done so because it was self defense. Animals get violent, after all. It's just instinct.

Hard as it was to see, it wasn't enough to make him lose hope. I need to change this, he'd thought, and he'll stand by that.

-

We're going to change the world, he yells out, swept up in the crowd but still looking for those pretty golden eyes. Come with us! 

The dark ears swivel towards him, and he waves frantically with his two signs. Join me! he manages to call, before she disappears from sight. Two days later, she shows up with a sign and a voice loud enough to match his.

-

We'll change the world, he whispers, you and I. I'll teach you all you have to learn, and we'll make this world an easier place.

He presses a kiss to the top of his daughter's small, dark head, right between the small ears that are still sealed shut to the world. She opened her eyes, grinning up at him immediately, like his status of _dad_ was more important than any post-birth tantrum she was prepared to throw. 

We're changing the world! He announces when she asks him, seven years old and already standing next to him and Kali in the streets. He tells her to raise the sign she's holding high up in the sky, because someday things are going to change for them and for the faunus they leave behind, and he promises her that she'll look back on this day and remember the day she helped that happen. She grins back at him and hoists her sign up, an exact replica of that smile she'd given him the day she was born. A replica of the one that her mother had given him the day they started talking, and he lifted her up with pride, wondering what he'd done to deserve them.

-

We'll change the world, he promises. We'll live in a world better than you could ever imagine, a world where we don't have to fight to stay alive. And before you know it, you'll be standing there at the head, and you'll know how it feels to see something you made grow.

-

We can change the world, he claims, smiling down at her. Take this sign, go to the front. I trust you. Stay safe.

She smiles up at him, bouncing happily. Trust. She'd spent all this time trying to earn his trust, and here it was. It felt better than she could've imagined.

-

We're changing the world, he insists, gripping her hands tight. You'll see it someday, that I was right. 

-

We've almost changed the world, he growls, clenching a fist around her arm, tight. Blood stains his arms, his clothes, his face. It's rubbing off on her. Someday, she'll scrub herself to the bone, and nothing but the blood will remain. This is all worth it, he insists. It was self defense. We needed to. It's for the faunus, don't you care about the faunus, can't you care about your own people?

-

We're so close, he whispers, so close to changing the world. For good. 

-

She's not so sure she knows what good means anymore. 

-

Maybe it's here. Here, in unburdened kids, supposed to be her age. In a leader, barely a child, so convinced that she can make everyone happy, that the bad guys will be locked up and put away and left to rot for the good guys to celebrate. Happily ever after, like she'd said one night, laying sprawled across her top bunk.

That's what I hope to achieve, she mumbles, looking at the other half of their team. 

Just to give someone a happy ending.

-

Where are you going with this? She asks, and Ruby turns to grin up at her.

-

We're going to change the world, she laughs. We're going to train, and graduate, and be the most kick-ass Huntresses Remnant's ever seen, and we're going to change the world.

-

They don't know, she reminds herself. They can't know.

-

But the red in Ruby's cape, the red in her hair, the red that leaks into every part of her being, starts to look like the blood he'd smudged onto her years ago.

-

And she knew from the second she'd screamed those words into the wind, the second she had turned and run from her home, that it would stain her forever.

**Author's Note:**

> anyway thanks nnwm for kicking me into motion
> 
> yeah this is part of a series, they're all from the same song, but i'm gonna try to finish it all before putting them into the collection because otherwise it's out of order in order of lyrics and maybe chronologically if i decide to make it one big au


End file.
